Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow and an outspoken supporter of President Trump, has launched “Frank,” a new social media platform positioned as a “mix of YouTube and Twitter.” The site has been riddled with several issues during launch, mainly because of cyber-attacks “from all over the world.” Lindell claims that this is the biggest attack in history behind the 2020 election, comparable to the “bad part of a movie,” and states that he has received multiple death threats.
The MyPillow CEO recently held a 48-hour live stream that attracted around 90 million viewers, including conservative musician Ted Nugent, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. According to Lindell, the social media platform runs on its own servers to avoid being held hostage by third-party hosting services, which may decide to boot clients due to political reasons.
Earlier this year, Amazon Web Services expelled social media network, Parler, accusing them of failing to crack down on “violent” content in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol incident. Apple and Google similarly removed Parler from their app stores. Lindell criticized Facebook’s fact-checking system, saying that even if the information was accurate, the platform’s biased views were interwoven with the content.
“Frank” is expected to host up to a billion users, and the main aim of the platform is to uphold free speech based on the founding principles of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Lindell stressed that the United States was founded as a constitutional republic that aligned with the laws of the divine. Accordingly, his platform does not tolerate profanity, pornography, death threats, and using God’s name in vain.
“[People] want to hear this call for freedom, we are having a reformation or a revival… American people are starting to wake up, the world’s people are beginning to wake up… We should be fearless about our beliefs… They are not taking out rights and free speech,” Flynn said during the live stream.
Lawsuit against Dominion to defend First Amendment rights
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Lindell has announced that he is filing a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems. In February, Dominion filed a defamation suit against Lindell for publicizing evidence that the company was involved in manipulating the 2020 elections. During the live stream, he stated that his lawsuit was not a countermeasure to the lawsuit filed by Dominion but was instead a way of “pushing back offensively” and lobbying for free speech and First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit claims that Dominion caused grave harm to MyPillow and was involved in suppressing speech. Constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz explained that Dominion is guilty of violating Lindell’s First Amendment Rights. Since Dominion’s machines were widely used to tabulate votes, “Dominion is the government for purposes of the lawsuit.” As such, the company should be transparent to the American people and allow them to exercise their “right to look at Dominion’s source codes.”
Dominion will likely be sued under the “Alien and Sedition” laws, and Lindell states that this lawsuit could be one of the “most important First Amendment cases” in American history. “They’re trying to hide what they’re doing—at the same time that they’re trying to prevent you from entering the marketplace of ideas. They’re in the marketplace of ideas,” Dershowitz said in the live stream.
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“They’re not only in the marketplace of ideas; they’re in the economic marketplace too. They’re to shut you out of being able to sell your products in stores. They’re trying to silence you, and they’re doing it as the government of the United States. That’s why I’m in this case,” Dershowitz said.
After publicly supporting Trump and openly criticizing Dominion, Lindell faced several personal attacks. In January, Twitter permanently banned him from the platform for violating “civic integrity policy,” the same excuse the company used against Trump and many of his supporters. Twitter also banned the official MyPillow account after Lindell used it to post a personal message.
Lindell recently revealed that American retail chain Costco has stopped carrying his company’s products without providing a proper explanation, which has cost MyPillow an estimated $4 million to $10 million in annual sales. Almost two dozen companies have also pulled the company’s products from its shelves, including retail giants Bed Bath & Beyond, Sam’s Club, JCPenney, and Kohl’s. Furthermore, a conservative news website, World Net Daily, was demonetized by YouTube in March after it published a video defending Lindell.
Trump’s social media platform expected to launch within months
Lindell’s launch of “Frank” may soon be followed by the launch of Trump’s own social media platform. The former president has been banned or suspended from popular social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, drastically reducing his interaction with millions of his online followers. Jason Miller, one of Trump’s long-time advisors, said in an interview with Fox News last month that Trump would be returning online through his own platform in about three months.
“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media… It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” Miller said in the interview. “This new platform is going to be big… Everyone wants him, and he’s going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform,” he said.
According to a recent Hill-HarrisX poll, nearly one-third of respondents look forward to using Trump’s platform. In contrast, 54 percent of respondents said that they would not join, and 16 percent were undecided. Of the people who voted for Trump last year, 62 percent said that they would sign up for the social media network.